


Wear My Ring Around Your Neck

by NarkissusPond



Category: Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Past Drug Addiction, Past Relationship(s), Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-11
Updated: 2018-08-11
Packaged: 2019-06-25 15:35:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15643719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NarkissusPond/pseuds/NarkissusPond
Summary: "One would think he'd regret all of them in equal measure but there were only five out of the many poor souls he conned Stallone truly regretted. The ones that kept him awake at night, thinking about how he could have done better."





	Wear My Ring Around Your Neck

Over a few years Stallone had collected seven wedding bands and nine engagement rings. Some were heirlooms, passed down across generations. Others were made specifically for him. All were promises of a lifetime of love and devotion from fools enough to trust a man like him.

There were many times he'd considered selling them off. He could easily make a tidy sum for the trinkets. Some were gold. Some he could certainly pass off as gold to the right person.  However, there had always been something stopping him. No matter how much he needed just a few caps more, he never did. Sentimentality, remorse, nostalgia, guilt, and any mix thereof.

Stallone knew he'd be better off if he got rid of them. He could sell them, give them away, or toss them in a ditch. It didn't much matter how he did it. All they did were serve as reminders of exactly what type of a man he was. The type of man who's greed and selfishness outweighed any amount of kindness he had in him. The man who valued chems over people he'd tricked into loving him.

 He didn't need to do any of it. There were other ways he could have made ends meet . He chose to pretend to love them. He chose to leave them. He could always rationalize it. "They deserved it for falling for such an obvious con," Stallone told himself, but he was still the one who pulled the con in the first place.  

He kept all of the rings on a thin chain tucked away in the bottom of his pack. Most days went by without him ever thinking of it. The daytime hours were preoccupied by thoughts of the future rather than the past. Where he would go. What he needed to do. What troubles he'd face.

The night however was a very different story. Something about the crackle of the fire and chorus of crickets made him reminisce. He'd dig it out from his bag, lay back , and look up at the stars thinking back on it all. Something about the nights in Mojave made him strangely introspective. Maybe it was the stars. He'd always felt small in comparison to them. His problems felt smaller. It used to bother him-- the insignificance of it all and him. With time Stallone had come to be comforted by the feeling.     

He looked at the chain of rings and frowned. One would think he'd regret all of them in equal measure but there were only five out of the many poor souls he conned Stallone truly regretted. The ones that kept him awake at night, thinking about how he could have done better. Everyone else almost felt unimportant in comparison.  

                                                             

* * *

 

The first was Lorelei, a doctor out of the Commonwealth wasteland. A vault dweller who had gone on a journey out west to help down on their luck folks who couldn't help themselves. She was as sweetly naive as one would expect. Stallone remembered the details of her best not only because she was his first, but because she was the one he probably regretted the most. She was too kind for him. Once again that wasn't surprising with her being a vault dweller, but Stallone wished he hadn't been the one to show her what exactly the world above ground had to offer.

He was somewhere around the age of nineteen when he first saw the pair of brahmin pulling her caravan into Nashville. Back then, he was only pickpocket, yet to discover the ease with which he could con people. He saw her caravan, packed up high with medical supplies, and knew she'd make the perfect mark.   

That night he took it upon himself to lighten their load. He still remembered her too-bright yellow turtleneck beneath her doctor's coat and her red hair, even brighter than that, tied back in a loose ponytail when she'd caught him. She smiled.  That's when it was over and Stallone didn't even know it.

They spent a good year or so living together. She'd taken him in and taught him some of her trade. He never fully grasped the science behind it, but he learnt in that short time to treat everything from a headache to a bullet wound. Stallone had always had a mind for fixing things. People were a natural step up, he supposed. If nothing else he appreciated everything she'd taught him. It saved his ass more than a couple times out.  

Looking back he had little interest in her beyond friendship. For him-- a boy who'd yet to experience genuine human connection-- it felt like love. Still, whatever he felt paled in comparison to Lorelei's feelings for him. It took all of a month for her to invite him into her home. By the six month mark she talked about him like he was the love of her life. Her missing piece.

For all the talk, she didn't care for much of the person Stallone actually was. He put on an act with her. The mask of a well-intentioned young man who just wanted to help people who was unlucky in his upbringing, or lack thereof. He was kind, yes. He liked helping people. All that, though? That wasn't Stallone. He'd always be the street rat from Nashville who'd spent his childhood picking pockets. He was a kid who slept with a switchblade under his pillow when he was lucky enough to have one. He didn't regret that and Lorelei didn't like that. He could change for her and she'd help him.  

Maybe he did love her, though. It hurt like love when he finally had to run. For as terrified as he was it still hurt to do. What made it worse was Stallone knew it hurt her more. He took as much as he could carry with him including some of the practice's stock of med-x, antibiotics, and stimpaks.

Stallone still didn't know what triggered it. He hadn't planned it. One day over lunch she'd been talking to him about spending her life with him, getting married, and adopting kids. That night his instincts took over, he ran, and he never looked back. No note. Not a word. He deserved every bit of hatred she must have harbored towards him. He was scared, but fear was no excuse for leaving the way he did.    

                                               

* * *

 

After Lorelei, there was Magdalene, the daughter of one of the largest trade caravan companies west of the Appalachia. She was everything Lorelei wasn't. Where Lorelei had been humble, down to earth, and kind, Magdalene was a minx with a fiery temper who'd sooner throw hands than talk with a lust for life's darker pleasures.

They met when she snuck away from her father's guards and slipped away into the bustling market where she caught sight of him, standing almost a head taller than everyone around him. The way she told it " I saw all six foot something of  you in that leather jacket with that smile and I told myself I had to make that man mine." From then on they were inseparable. 

In Stallone she wanted the bad boy who'd show her all the things she'd been missing out on in the cushy and lavish gilded cage she'd spent her life living in. By that time of his life, he had a reputation for stealing and being an altogether untrustworthy individual. An individual who was more than happy to do anything for caps. He was more than happy to oblige Magdalene's desires...for a price.    

He showed her everything a man who'd lived the life he'd lived had to offer. They ran scams in the market, racking in caps he desperately needed for his next dinner and pocket change for her. They made deals with chem-pushers in dark alleys. Deals that sometimes ended with shootouts, with Magdalene huddled behind, as terrified as she was utterly thrilled. No matter how much trouble it ended in, anything she wanted to do, Stallone obliged.  

With time her requests unsurprisingly grew more extravagant, more dangerous, and she wanted him involved in every step of it. If she was going to spiral out of control she was going to take him with her, and she did.

Within a couple months, they'd been in at least fifteen shootouts. He'd been shot and stabbed more times than he could count. Nothing that had never happened to him before, but Magdalene... Magdalene was much worse off. She'd become addicted to every chem with a name with a particular fondness for needles. When he wanted to stop she pushed harder. As always, it ended how she wanted it to end.

 If she wanted to get high, he'd be high alongside her. He obliged her every request, no matter how much his better self hated it. If she asked him to shoot himself in the foot he might have. Her cravings, as expected, grew more and more frequent. By the end he was buying months worth of psycho that would last her all of a week. Stallone didn't fall prey to the needle as fast as she did. Actually, he had a distinct disdain for needles which was probably for the best. Jet, mentats, and daytripper were his chems of choice. They were not nearly so destructive as Magdalene's daily doses of psycho chased with med-x and moonshine.

Stallone never did learn what happened to Magdalene because eventually her father caught wind of what happened to his dear daughter. By caught wind, he specifically found her on a chaise lounge with a needle in her arm and Stallone passed out on top of her. He was fortunate he wasn't killed that day, but Stallone didn't feel so fortunate at the time when he was dragged out into the back alley by the guards and beaten bloody.  

                                                   

* * *

 

Almost immediately after Magdalene came June. She was his chem-dealer whose subordinates had found him passed out in a ditch the day after his beating. Being a good source of caps when he'd been with Magdalene, they saw fit to help him and bring him to June.

They were a good fit at the start. She plied his newly acquired habits. He, in turn, supplied her with the ingredients needed to make more. Their relation was never especially romantic, nor even loving. June was nothing if not cold and calculating in all that she did. She'd probably used him as much as he'd used her.

With time he turned to dealing himself. Before then he'd only sold what chems he'd happened upon in the pockets of dead raiders to dealers, but as it turned out Stallone made a decent dealer himself. Charm and a good sense for business made him savvy.   

The more caps he brought in the more fond of him June had become. Of course, he put on a charming act to go along with it. Stallone was nothing if not an incorrigible flirt. The tactics changed ,but he never did. The flirting, looks, the touches were enough to make her lieutenants grow suspicious and eventually wary. As fond as she was of him, she didn't notice the fraction he cut off the top while she wasn't looking.

It was not too soon after she first invited him to bed that June showed him the ropes of chem-making. Much like the first aid Lorelei taught him, Stallone wasn't certain of the science behind it. He knew what needed ground up and mixed with what to make mentats or jet. If it glowed it probably took you on one hell of a trip or gave you radiation poisoning. Sometimes both. He wouldn't call himself a chemist, but he could make enough to sate himself and his customers.

He knew they'd never last. This wasn't love. At this point, Stallone wasn't sure he believed in love. It was a matter of when would be the best time to finally skip out on her. He knew it would be dangerous but staying was even more dangerous. He didn't regret what he did to June herself. He didn't much care for her as a person, actually, but he regretted where it left him when he finally left. Maybe he would've have been better off leaving sooner. He couldn't say. He'd probably wouldn't be struggling nearly so much with addiction if he'd left the first month.

When Stallone finally skipped out on her he took enough chems to last the average man a year. For Stallone it lasted about eight months. Some of it he dealt. Most of it he took. In caps he took maybe eight hundred from her stash and made a little over that in the sales he'd skimmed.

The caps he made definitely weren't worth it because the moment June realized what he had done every raider and mercenary in Tennessee was after his head. A bounty of five thousand caps, dead or alive. He'd have made more turning himself in. There was only one thing to do when running wouldn't work. Run farther.   

                                                             

* * *

 

On his way out west, he'd stopped in a number of cities, conning everyone who crossed his path. Strapped for caps, he met Sawyer in the ruins of an old music hall in Dallas. He was a roots of the earth type of man with a merciless sense of business hidden beneath all that southern charm. All in all, a man after Stallone's own heart.

Unable to pay for the rest of the way with the wagon train west, he stuck around in Dallas for a good while. There was a novelty he could always appreciate in being somewhere where no one knew his name. He could do just about anything he pleased, say anything he pleased, without so much a quirk of the brow. And he did. In a few short months he played the part of a hired gun, doctor, repairman, trader, and dealer.

For Sawyer he played the part of a musician. Stallone got his hands on a guitar and for a few months he played for Sawyer's clientele, raking in caps from especially appreciative customers. There wasn't a night he wasn't without a dozen free drinks from men and women alike. For as many admirers as he had Stallone's nights always ended with him, Sawyer, and a whiskey at the bar.

He was an altogether kind man. He was a lot like Lorelei without the delusions of a lifetime together without strife. They argued. They fought. They aired it out when they were done. Sawyer felt like everything he could be if he'd gathered up the courage to settle down and focus on a career. Like Stallone he did not necessarily have the best of starts in this world, but he, unlike Stallone, made the best of it. He built himself up while Stallone only dug himself deeper and deeper.

He truly enjoyed Sawyers company. He had a good sense of humour, easy on the eyes, and moreover he was a man. Stallone learnt a lot of things about himself with Sawyer. Namely, he found an explanation for why he didn't have nearly as much interest in the women in his past as they had for him. It left him wondering why he hadn't realized this about five years ago but damn if he didn't finally start to enjoy himself.

For as much as he maybe even loved Sawyer it was never going to work. Not long term. He was still strung out and the very notion of spending more than a year with someone was enough to send him running. A few years of torrid relationship after torrid relationship and a lifetime alone does that to a man.  It was never going to last, not when Stallone stole from him when his tips weren't enough to see him through the week. Chems were an expensive vice after all.

Of course, he was caught. It was fairly easy to notice when two hundred caps went missing almost weekly. At first, Sawyer tried to work with him. He really tried to help him get over his addictions but month after month he relapsed. It was almost inevitable.

One day, after what must have been his twelfth relapse, Sawyer gave him an ultimatum. It was him or the chems.

Stallone chose chems.  

                                                                     

* * *

 

The most recent and hopefully his last was Luke--maybe Lucas or perhaps Luca--a Chairmen Stallone met his first week on The Strip. Stallone remembered little about him beyond that. Nothing beyond what he had in his pockets stuck out.

Like June, Stallone did not necessarily regret how he left Luke but rather that it had ever happened in the first place. There is something to be said for the unshakable terror of not remembering an entire month of your life because you were either high or drunk on any substance you could get your hands on. The giant blanks stretches in his memory made those few lucid moments all the more upsetting when he did remember them.

Stallone would be the first to admit it was probably not the best time in his life. Hot off the heels of Sawyer and a few smaller cons, he made it into Vegas. It was the last place an emotionally compromised alcoholic chem addict wanted to be.

After a week-long bender of daytripper chased down with jet, Stallone found himself in a casino half-naked surrounded by men in equal states of undress with no recollection of how he'd ended up in that situation. Next thing he remembers is standing at the altar with a man who was maybe named Luke with a bonafide Elvis impersonator officiating the ceremony. He didn't remember that night. He didn't want to remember that night.  They likely got high and passed out, but he didn't want to consider what happened if they hadn't.

As it turned out even inebriated, he could still run one damn good con because at the end of that sordid affair he was about five thousand caps richer without even knowing how. A damned run of luck for Luke, but if he didn't deserve it Stallone would have been surprised. As far as he was concerned he deserved it for even trying to take advantage of him as he was. He deserved that and so much worse.  

Out of all the heartbreak he had caused--though he doubted it was much of a heartbreak in this particular instance-- he felt the least remorse for Luke. It was remorse for himself. Luke could die in a ditch as far as he was concerned. For as traumatizing as it all was, it was a much needed wake-up call that came a little bit too late.

                                               

* * *

 

After Luke, he took his first job as a courier. He thought it would be best to keep away from cities for a little while. The itch wasn't fun the first week. Everything was too fast and far too loud. He knew a hit of jet would end it, but he struggled past it. It was good. He was making progress.  It seemed like he could finally start to turn things around.

The second job, he got shot in the head.

Strangely, that had been good too. It gave him a purpose. He was roped into something all too big for a conman from Nashville. Legion, NCR, Vegas, and everything in between seemed like they had their eyes on him. All because he was unlucky enough to sit down to a rigged game.

He sat back up and let out a long sigh. This was not where he'd expected himself to be but he didn't hate it. Stallone looked at the necklace of rings in his hands, wondering if all that had been worth it to get where he was. He thought on it all. He wanted to tell himself it was all in the past. He'd been given his chance to change and he would. He wasn't that man anymore ,but sometimes he wondered.

He took a swig of whiskey and put that thought aside. He returned the necklace to its place in his rucksack and rolled over on bedroll, determined not to think on it. Some other night he'd pick this up again. Some other night.

**Author's Note:**

> Whats good its been a hot minute since I've posted writing and a hotter minute since I've done fandom things. Being all sorts of fancy posting on ao3 rather than just tumblr. Though I am on tumblr [here](http://narkissus.tumblr.com/)


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